Valerie Bertinelli's 'One Dish at a Time': Love, Italian style

Actress Valerie Bertinelli shares family recipes in her first cookbook, “One Dish at a Time.” QUENTIN BACON

In 2004, actress Valerie Bertinelli met her future husband, Tom Vitale, in her brother’s kitchen. Soon she was in love, falling for Vitale while they prepared appetizers — shrimp, and crostini with mozzarella, prosciutto and basil — for a dinner at the same brother’s home.

“These are all recipes I grew up with or learned from people that I love,” says the “Hot in Cleveland” star in a recent phone interview. “Every recipe I have has a little story to it. I remember where I ate it or who I was cooking with when we made it.”

Tracy Ann Politowicz/The Star-Ledger

Even before she twice documented her life story, the ups and downs of Bertinelli’s past were well known: a successful acting career that began when she was a teenager, including TV’s “One Day a Time” (hence the cookbook title); a difficult marriage to rock star Eddie Van Halen and the birth of their son, Wolfgang, now 21; and an affiliation with the Jenny Craig weight-loss program, for which she became a spokeswoman and lost 40 pounds.

During our telephone conversation, we talked about her childhood, dieting, her son and her least likely travel companion.

Q. What’s your earliest memory of cooking with relatives or watching them cook?

A. I was very, very young, like 5, 6 years old, sitting at the big table watching my nonni and my mom roll out gnocchi or cappelletti dough and grinding the meat … and always wanting to help.

Q. Did you get to help?

A. Oh, yeah. I used to help my mom ice the cookies or help her stir the sauce. It was always fun for me.

Q. Many people consider Italian food to be comfort food, but you only use the phrase “comfort food” once in the book. Was that intentional?

A. No, it wasn’t, because I love rustic Italian and I do find it — like the ribollita — is major comfort food to me. It just makes you warm in the belly and it tastes so good. But it’s not that fattening, which is kind of nice. So, you can do comfort food without killing your diet.

During the hectic holiday season, the Tuscan peasant soup ribollita is comforting and easy to pull together. QUENTIN BACON

Q. I wondered whether the lack of that phrasing was because you describe yourself as a former emotional eater and perhaps wanted to stay away from that terminology to discourage such behavior in others.

A. Well, you know what, that’s a good point. But with food, I don’t want to leave anything out, because it’s okay to have comfort food once in a while. And to enjoy comfort food with people that you love. I just like to frame food differently now and not make it the enemy. It actually does nourish my body and makes my soul feel good a lot of times. But I don’t use it to suppress any feelings that I don’t want to feel. I use it to enjoy people and enjoy cooking. Sometimes, the process of cooking the food is even more fun than eating it.

Q. The book does emphasize the close relationships in your life, how important they are to you and how food fits into all of that.

A. Definitely. To this day, Tom and I sometimes have date nights at home. We’ll open up a bottle of wine and put music on and dance around the kitchen and cook. It becomes a date night — you don’t have to go out to eat.

Q. What is the best piece of advice you would give someone who is learning how to cook?

A. Take your time. And don’t beat yourself up if you burn something. Because I still burn stuff once in a while. Actually, it’s a common joke in our house during Thanksgiving that I always mess up the gravy. So, my mom has to make the gravy. Even Wolfie will laugh at me and say, “Mom, did you burn the popcorn again?” Something as simple as popcorn! So, don’t beat yourself up if something like that happens. Because you can always try again.

Q. Did you teach your son how to cook?

A. He’s actually a very good cook, too! The last time I ate with him, he cooked for us.

Q. Did you teach him?

A. No, he taught himself! Because it was the same way that I grew up, I grew up watching my mother and grandmother cook and so you learn by osmosis, I guess. He grew up sitting at the kitchen table doing his homework, watching me cook for him. So, I guess it rubbed off. I’m so proud of him.

Q. That’s obvious in your book and your tweets (her twitter name is @wolfiesmom). Given your affiliation with Jenny Craig and your well-documented weight loss, do you think people expected you to write a diet cookbook?

A. Yeah, they absolutely did. And there are some Jenny Craig-inspired recipes in there, too, because they really taught me how to eat again and taught me to appreciate food again and not make it the enemy any longer. … I hope what the book really says though is you can be on a weight loss diet and be on that journey, and still eat regular food.

Q. The cookbook does mention several times that moderation is key.

A. Definitely. Because I don’t want to deprive myself. I would do that and find that I would obsess about the food and then overindulge. So, if you just remember that the first bite is always the best, you don’t have to overindulge.

Q. I never thought of that.

A. It’s true, isn’t it?

Q. It is true, once you think about it. What is your favorite dish in the cookbook to make?

A. Oh, that’s impossible. That’s like (asking) which is my favorite child. (laughs) Some of them are more fun to make than others. I happen to just really love pasta alle vongole. That’s one of my favorite meals and, when we went to Italy, I tried it in every single restaurant we went to. ... Maybe the ribollita because it’s so easy to throw together with the stuff that you would always have in your house, or at least stuff that I always have in my house. Lasagna is always a good crowd-pleaser. But there are so many recipes that I love and it’s kind of hard. I can’t pick.

Q. Are you an adventurous “I’ll try anything once” kind of eater? For example, if you went to a foreign country where there was an unusual local delicacy, would you try it?

A. No. I like the things that I am used to and what I grew up on, and I don’t think I am a very adventurous eater. I don’t think Anthony Bourdain and I would do very well on a trip together. I could watch him eat though. (laughs)